“She was closed up like a fist. It her very own memory, not theirs, her very own real and terrible and lonely and dark memory.”

“It was as if she had more than learned it off by heart. Though. it was as if their memory, the memory of all the Corregidora women, was her memory too, as strong with her as her own private memory, or almost as strong. But now she was Mama again.”

“I wanted a song that would touch me, touch my life and theirs. A portuguese song, but not a portuguese. song. A new world song. A song branded with the new world. I thought of the girl who had to sleep with her master and mistress. Her father, the master. Her daughter's father. The father of her daughter's daughter. How many generations. Days that were pages of hysteria. their survival depended on suppressed hysteria.”

“There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don't know what I mean, or whether I'm true myself to any of that. I don't think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities. ”

“Yes, but I don't always remember that I talk now.' Sara hugged me for the second time in two minutes. 'Your voice is beautiful. You sound like you're singing,' I could see her little guy growing up. His terrible two's drive her crazy. She has a wedding ring on her finger. She has several bad hair phases.”

“…Sometimes there are things that people should be afraid of." "Like the dark?" She shook her head. "No, more the absence of light.”

“It’s easy to watch someone else’s life crash and burn, harder to watch your own accident up close.”